


To Build a Nest of Tea Leaves

by Waistcoat35



Category: Classicaloid (Anime)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-11 02:44:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15305676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Waistcoat35/pseuds/Waistcoat35
Summary: My classicaloid zine entry for 2018. Pretty much just Schubert working at a tea shop and having feelings.





	To Build a Nest of Tea Leaves

**Author's Note:**

> Please enjoy - if you haven't already, please look at the full zine @classicaloidzine on tumblr and maybe consider making a donation to their chosen charity!

Franz is unaware of the tea shop’s existence until he is standing right in front of it – quite a lot like so many other things in this strange new age. (He has only just managed to get over the devilry that was the toaster – but never let it be said that he isn’t an adaptable man.) The shop front is all dark, polished wood, the sign overhead displaying the white silhouette of a crane in flight.

 _Orizuru Tea Emporium_.

He bites down slightly on his lower lip, gloved fingers pinching his chin. It’s not the most conventional of workplaces, and he’s somehow doubtful that the job will pay well – but it _is_ a job, and it _will_ pay something, however small the pittance. Besides, such small establishments are lenient in their employment – he has been unable to find work at a chain store simply because they can’t employ somebody without any sort of identification papers or previous record of employment. They certainly can’t employ somebody with no previous record of their own _existence_.

When he finally gathers enough nerve to venture inside, jumping slightly at the ringing of the bell over his head, he quickly realises he’s being watched from behind the counter. The person in question is an old woman, and as he tilts his head and begins to open his mouth, she holds her hand up.

“Let me guess – you want a job?” Dumbstruck, he closes his mouth once again and nods, and before he knows it he’s being bustled behind the counter and an apron is being shoved over his head, wizened hands tying the knot with a yank that actually _winds_ him. After he has finished gasping for breath, he looks over his shoulder at the woman.

“D-don’t you need to ask me about-“

She cuts him off promptly. “Your employment history? Please, any fool could tell from the way you stand there like an eager puppy that you don’t have any. But goodness knows nobody else is helping me out around here. Eight hundred and sixty yen per hour, take it or leave it.”

He attempts to speak once more. “I- “

“You’re taking it? That’s a smart decision to make. Good for you. Well, you’ve got this shift, I have some groceries to go and get.” With that, she… _leaves_.

It appears he may have gotten himself a job. Without a shred of effort on his own part, yes, but he has a job – that’s the important thing right now.

It takes twenty minutes or so, but Franz soon figures out how to operate the scales and finds several stacks of paper bags, and by time a customer arrives he more or less has everything sorted. He works the same way for several hours, making polite small-talk with his customers as he weighs tea out into paper bags and then places each one in another paper bag.

When the woman comes back, he’s served eight new customers and taken a reasonable amount of money considering how long she’s been gone. She looks around at the swept floor, the neatly arranged jars, the newly-unwrapped stack of paper bags, and she gives a nod which could mean something resembling approval. She does not press his wages into his hand (“I pay by the _week_ ,” she tells him sternly,) but she does hold out a large object, wrapped in brown wax paper. He makes as if to open it, but she stops him with a scolding and a slap to the fingers, so he waits until later.

 

  **Moroccan Mint Tea**

The first loose leaf tea he ever tries turns out to be Moroccan Mint tea.

As he walks home, the sky an uncertain sort of yellow (as though it can’t decide whether to darken or brighten and start all over again right now, as enjoyable as the day has been,) he shifts the bundle around in his arms. It makes a soft rustling sound, like shells on a beach scraping together as they’re walked on.

When he finally walks through the door (after stopping to crouch down and nod to Hasshie) he is immediately harassed by _Mozart_ , and he must fend off grabby, inquisitive hands from snatching his bundle. In the end, he lands a decent kick to Mozart’s shin, and he trips over on his rollerblades, leaving Franz to head into the kitchen. While the pink-haired beast is distracted with Kanae’s subsequent arrival from her after-school study group, he shuts the kitchen door and opens his bundle.

The tea leaves come in little bundles of wax paper, the shiny shapes rolled into tiny pellets and tucked among tied-together clumps of spearmint leaves. He follows the instructions written on ivory parchment in spidery handwriting, carefully preparing the leaves with boiling water and sugar.

The taste darts crackling whips over his tongue, sweet but with a curling kick, like a bird’s wings suddenly unfurling for flight. For this, it feels all the more like the start of something; he shifts the cup in his hands and smiles, turning his gaze to watch the sunset from the window.

He spends less time running around after Beethoven that night.

 

 

** Keemun **

The next is Keemun tea, brought home on the days when he’s been stressed and the shop’s been busy, pressed into his gloved hands in a pink paper bag with rose-embroidered ribbon around the handles. At first he’s never quite sure why she does that, but judging from the pleased little smirk Liszt gives when he gets the tea out for their weekly chats it must’ve been the right choice. (At some point he ought to try and explain to the woman that they’re just friends, he thinks, but he knows that and Liszt knows that, so surely it is worth enduring the coy winks as the tea is wrapped if it makes his friend happy.

This tea comes in little wrinkled rolls, wafer-thin, and it smells of cherries and orchids, tastes malty and mellowing and ever-so-lightly perfumed. They both remember far more then they let on to anybody else, and they talk about this as they sip the warm fruitiness in their cups. Liszt talks about meeting Beethoven at a concert – Franz recounts a crowded coffee house, clumsy hands dogged by shaky nervousness pressing music into larger, calloused ones. A gentle and unrequited smile, a roll of thunder, a final breath, a burning pall. They both sip, and talk, recite poetry -Goethe and Faust – and share all of the things they cannot with anybody else.

**Assam**

This is a tea for mornings – sometimes he’ll find it on the counter when he opens, and as it sits there wrapped up and ready in cream tissue paper, he somehow knows it’s intended only for him. He’ll make a cup in the back room, senses stirring and sleep-hazed eyes brightening as he sips cinder-coloured liquid, sifts the comma-shaped shoots through his hands as the concoction’s briskness infuses his steps.

On other occasions, he’ll have a bit left over, and it slowly collects in a striped tin tucked away behind the fruit bowl. On the mornings when he hasn’t got work, (i.e. national holidays and Sundays) he uses this little supply to keep himself going. Over time, though, he notices his secret stash being used up faster than before – it would seem there is somebody in the house who wants to share.

He finds out who one spring day, when the kitchen is engulfed in pinkish-amber light pooling over the table and chairs like golden syrup. Franz comes down earlier than usual, having slept all he can and with his bare back warmed by the sunlight filtering through his window; Chopin is standing at the counter, contentedly sipping at a cup of assam as he watches the starlings pick at the last of the bird feeder’s stock. Schubert considers retreating once more to give him this rare moment of peace, but it would seem that his presence had already been acknowledged, because Chopin turns his head ever so slightly, inclines it and gives a soft humming noise.

Schubert doesn’t ask if he wants to help restock the bird feeders, and Chopin doesn’t offer, but somehow they find themselves doing it side by side anyway.

**Matcha**

This tea isn’t one he himself brings home. He returns shortly after Mozart and Beethoven get back from their time working in a tea-field to find it in the kitchen, Kanae scowling into the paper bag and muttering something about rent money. She’s sifting the grains angrily through her fingers, and despite being wary of her ire, Franz feels for her. He’s the one who notices the bills in the hallway, will take away the smaller ones still in their envelopes until his wages have accumulated themselves in a glass jar and he can pay them off for her.

After all she’s done, allowing them to stay, allowing them to all make a home together against any odds they would’ve had on their own, when she’s had every right and reason to evict them – he owes her that much. She’s far too young to have all of this put onto her shoulders – at her age Franz had siblings, he had friends, his parents were both present and helped to take care of them all. She doesn’t have that – and it doesn’t feel right that right now, they’re her only family. But they must simply make the best of things.

Franz starts by making her a cup of tea, gently prising the bag from her tightly-clenched hands and preparing the fresh leaves. He is unsurprised at her grateful smile as she swallows down frustrated tears, but he must admit that when arms briefly wrap around him from behind before she leaves the room, he doesn’t expect it. Next time he is given a slip for his rent, the sum is considerably smaller than before, and when he makes his bed on the sofa there are extra blankets.

It would seem that they both know how much the other is trying.

**Amber Oolong**

This tea is what he brings back after a particularly difficult day, knuckles too tight against the parcel as he hears the leaves inside crackling under the added pressure. The evening sun is but an irritant, his aggravation contracted from a combination of an extremely busy day, a lack of sleep the night before and a conversation overheard in the shop. Even when performing the most mundane activities, people nowadays must still compare one thing to another, accuse one or the other of fraud to further flatter their own choice.

He is not like Mozart. He is _not_ like _Mozart_. Mozart, who is base and cruel. Mozart, who is childish and insincere. Mozart, who is Beethoven’s _best friend_. Mozart, who – is standing at the kitchen table.

They exchange no words, barely even looks, but as Schubert pours the boiling water to prepare the amber liquid, hands shaking with pent-up frustration at – well, more or less _everything_ , another set of hands take the pot and hold it steady. Not doing it for him, not leaving him to struggle on his own – just steadying the course as he drives.

 _You have both my thanks and my envy_ , he doesn’t say.

 _I wish we were always like this_ , Mozart fails to reply.

**Phoenix Honey Orchid**

They’ve finished another grand scheme, and he’s boiling the water. The woman in the shop has gotten the hint – she’s stopped winking when she gives him parcels of Keemun, but still wraps it nicely. Now she hands him Phoenix Honey Orchid with a gentler smile than before, all scooped into a little glass jar. It is like fanned tail feathers, ashy yet sweet – the name says a lot about it.

It is not a neat tea, fussy and difficult to prepare, so it suits them rather well. Nowadays he could make more or less anything, and the other man would not begrudge it of him – they have reached an understanding. Schubert gives less and in return is given more, and balance now exists in their relationship. There is a pair of magpies building a nest in the garden.

 _Two for joy_ , he wants to say, but doesn’t.

Ludwig is the one who speaks.

“Let us hope that they manage to make a home just as well as we did.”


End file.
